WEST LOOP — Chicago will be the largest city in the Northern Hemisphere — and one of only three of the world’s 130 most populous cities — without an intercity bus terminal if the Greyhound station closes as planned next month.
This is the conclusion of a policy brief published Tuesday by the Chaddick Institute at DePaul University, which studies transportation and urban planning issues in Chicago and elsewhere.
The fate of Chicago’s Greyhound terminal at 630 W. Harrison St. has been uncertain since FlixBus purchased the company in 2021. That deal did not include the station and numerous other properties.
The following year, 33 Greyhound terminals were purchased by a subsidiary of hedge fund Alden Global Capital, which floated plans to redevelop the Chicago site.
Flix North America’s lease on the Harrison Street property expires in October, and operators must vacate the facility by Sept. 20, company vice president Gilda Brewton said Tuesday during a High Speed Rail Alliance webinar.
With the looming closure, transportation experts and representatives are urging the city to come up with a suitable plan to provide covered waiting areas for intercity bus riders and efficient boarding and alighting service, but no concrete proposal is yet in sight.
Joe Schwieterman, a professor at DePaul University and author of the policy brief released Tuesday, said Chicago’s intercity bus service “crisis” could disproportionately impact a system that is frequently used by the elderly, low-income riders, people with disabilities and people who cannot or do not want to drive.
“We want to make sure everyone knows how unprecedented this is to be a major global city without a bus station,” he said in an interview Tuesday. “In Chicago, the loss of the station is not getting the attention it deserves from the city or the transit authorities.”
A spokesman for the Chicago Department of Transportation did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
The DePaul report used several factors to determine what qualifies as an intercity bus terminal in large cities, including a physical structure that serves as a shelter for passengers, a location within 10 kilometers of the city center, and an access point “away from city streets.”
If the Greyhound terminal in Chicago is actually closed, Chicago would be the only city among the 15 most populous cities in the global north that does not have such a facility. Worldwide, Chicago would be the only city among the 130 largest cities in the world that does not have an intercity bus station, along with Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Nairobi in Kenya, the statement said.
The Greyhound station in Chicago, built in 1989, is used by four bus lines and transports around 500,000 passengers annually.
Transport experts and representatives have been calling on the city for months to buy the station and lease it to private bus companies. However, the city says it is not considering this option.
“The City of Chicago applied for funding from the federal Bus and Bus Facility Program to purchase the existing terminal, but the application was denied. The City also considered purchasing the existing facility, but found it not financially feasible,” Department of Transportation spokeswoman Erica Schroeder said in an email to Block Club earlier this month. “Currently, the City is evaluating alternative options to ensure intercity bus service continues without interruption.”
The city of Chicago has suggested that Greyhound and other bus companies could provide bus service outside Union Station, possibly at a CTA transfer station or along Jackson Boulevard while passengers wait inside. However, Amtrak, which owns the station, has raised numerous concerns about the viability of that plan.
The best-case scenario for the immediate future would be an extension of the lease on the current Chicago Greyhound terminal to buy the city and stakeholders more time, Schwieterman said. Amtrak also supports that short-term proposal.
“Flix has presented us with concepts that contain few details on accessibility for passengers with disabilities, luggage storage and handling, bus collection points off Jackson Boulevard, and countless other things that would occur on an already busy roadway without a shelter,” Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari wrote in a recent letter to the Chicago Tribune.
“We hope that the city can step in and support Flix at its current location over the coming winter, as solving this transportation problem is a matter of equity and may take some time.”
Magliari declined further comment, saying the letter represents the company’s most current position on the issue.
At Tuesday’s webinar, Brewton said FlixBus sees the Jackson Boulevard option as an ideal interim solution. The company supports buying or building a permanent “intermodal” bus terminal in Chicago, she said.
“The short-term solution would be Amtrak, the long-term solution would be an intermodal facility like the ones in LA and New York City,” she said. “That would provide our customers with ease of use, easy transfers and the ability to use other modes of transportation.”
While city leaders have proposed using Union Station for now, advocates also fear it could lead to a reduction in available transfers and other services, something Brewton confirmed Tuesday.
“There was a period when we were not allowed to operate there, so we were asked not to operate during peak hours,” she said. “So we won’t be offering as many schedules or as many services as we have been doing, but we will have a basis for operations.”
Next week, the City Council’s Pedestrian Safety and Transportation Committee is expected to hold a hearing on the Greyhound station and intercity bus service issue, following a resolution introduced by Assemblymen Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35th) and Daniel La Spata (1st) in May.
Speaking at Tuesday’s webinar, Ramirez-Rosa said the City Council could use its zoning process to potentially advance a mixed-use development on the Harrison Street site that includes retaining a bus terminal – or at least extending the lease.
In the meantime, he expects Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration to pay more attention to the issue after the end of the Democratic National Convention last week.
“I hope that the city and its officials, who have been very, very busy with all the transportation issues related to the DNC, can really get serious about this now that the DNC is over, especially given that the clock is ticking on the lease at the current location,” Ramirez-Rosa said Tuesday.
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